


Friggason

by AliuIce0814



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: DID I MENTION SPOILERS, Gen, Loki Has Issues, Odin's A+ Parenting, Thor 2 Spoilers, frigga's the best mom to ever mom, heimdall sees all, loki friggason, long live the king, more of a frost midget tbh he's not all that tall for a giant, plot-hole-filler, whoops loki's a frost giant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-11
Updated: 2013-11-11
Packaged: 2018-01-01 04:55:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1040580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AliuIce0814/pseuds/AliuIce0814
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Loki didn't expect this.</p><p>It turned out better than he expected.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Friggason

**Author's Note:**

> SPOILERS. SPOILERS. SPOILERS.
> 
> Beta'd by my mum. Thanks, Mum. Love you.

            Loki hadn’t expected to die.

            Oh, he thinks when the Kursed runs him through. Oh. So this is what Mother felt.

            He falls. The ground is hard. He is a Jotunn after all. He surely dies like one: his skin is frozen, grey and cracking. Thor screams. Loki’s body shudders of its own accord.

            “See you in Hel, monster,” he spits. The Kursed roars, and then darkness takes it, swallowing it whole.

            Thor drops to his knees and cradles Loki. Loki suddenly remembers being small and stupid. He climbed a parapet to chase a raven and fell down, down, down. No one found him until Thor came. He found Loki with a broken leg and two black eyes. They’d been so young then, Thor rougher and ruder than he is now, but he lifted him just as gently as he does now. Despite how close in size they were, Thor carried Loki through the palace, crying, until Mother found them both. Loki didn’t shed a tear.

            The same is true now. Thor weeps over Loki’s ruined frame. He’s ever worn his heart in his eyes. “Ah, you fool, you didn’t listen,” he groans.

            “I know. I’m a fool. I’m a fool,” Loki chokes. He’s numb save for the screaming pain in his stomach. He doesn’t know what he knows anymore other than pain and the sound of Thor’s voice.

            “Stay with me,” Thor pleads. Loki wishes he could smile. Ah, Thor, you sweet idiot, he thinks. You know what death looks like.

            “I’m sorry,” Loki forces out. Sorry for making Thor look like a scared child. He enjoys Thor’s anger and pain but never his fear. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” Sorry for telling the Kursed which stairs to take. Sorry for not stopping him. Sorry for Mother—oh Mama, Mama, Loki never meant to…

            “…tell Father what you did here today,” Thor is saying. Loki hears him as though through water. He doesn’t have the energy to scoff.

            But an hour ago, they stood together. Loki mocked; Thor growled; they argued; they were brothers. They fought alongside each other in perfect harmony. When Loki called himself Loki of Jotunheim, it was a lie. No, he and Thor were brothers today, brothers as they should have always been. They were not Laufeyson or Odinson. They were Friggason.

            “I didn’t do it for him.” Loki sees a blur of red and gold, only that, but he knows it is Thor. Everything is cold and dark. Everything is—

 

 

            Loki stands on grey earth beneath a grey sky. Before and behind him are nothing.

            The pain in his stomach flares. He doubles over, clutching at the hole in his abdomen—

            --it’s gone. Loki presses gingerly at the newly-healed skin. No pain, not even a spark.

            Thor. Where is he? At least his mortal wench should be skulking around here. Loki turns, searching, but there’s no sign of either of them. This is neither Valhalla nor Hel, so he can’t be dead. His magic must have kicked in at the last moment, transported him somewhere to heal. It often has a mind of its own when he’s upset.

            “Loki. Loki!”

            Loki spins around, heart in his throat. He knows that voice. It’s the first voice he remembers hearing, the one that sang him to sleep, that taught him spells. Frigga is there, she is there, how is she there? She walks across the blank expanse as if she’s never been gutted by the Kursed. Loki staggers, recovers, as she approaches. She cannot be real. She’s dead. “Don’t,” he warns the illusion. “Don’t. I don’t—” His magic lashes out without permission, swiping at the illusion—but Frigga brushes it off.

             Not an illusion. She’s not illusion. She’s real. Loki swallows bile.

            “My dear child,” she says. She stops just in front of him, her hand hovering by his cheek. “My little magpie.”

            Loki cannot breathe. “Little magpie”—he hasn’t heard that since he was small enough to be carried around the palace in her arms. His magic shivers around his nerves, sparking and fading. She cannot be real. She cannot. The guard could have lied to him, but Thor could never. He would never.

            Loki leans into her touch. Her palm is warm against his skin. Substantial. Real.

            Loki’s legs give out.

            Mother catches him, falls to the ground with him. He cries out, clawing at his own face. She can’t be real. She can’t. His mother, his mother, Mother, Mother—

            “Shh, child. Loki, no.” Mother grabs his wrists so he can’t hurt himself anymore. Always trying to protect him from himself, oh, Mama. “I’m here. I’m here.”

            “No—”

            “Yes, I am.” Mother soothes. “So are you.”

            Loki screams.

            He can’t feel his face. His legs spasm, kicking out. His magic explodes outward, showering them in green fire. He should have killed the Kursed in the dungeon, he should have saved Mother, they didn’t even let him see the funeral, Mother—Loki screams without meaning to. He can’t control his lungs or voice. They are not a part of him. They are separate, away from his fracturing mind. He can’t control his spasming, exploding magic.

            “Hush, Loki. Hush. Oh, Loki.”

            Mother can control it. Her magic wraps around Loki’s, containing it. She wraps her arms around him. When he chokes and clutches at her shoulders, she pulls him onto her lap. He dwarfs her, a man, not a babe, but she rocks him as if he were a little child. She shields Loki’s head with her hands. “Calm, Loki, calm yourself. I’m here. I am.”

            “Mother, Mama, Mama…” Loki’s voice doesn’t sound like his own anymore. It’s thin and cracked like a child’s, full of rage and tears. “Mama. Mama. Mama, Ma, Ma—”

            “Calm, Loki. Shh.” Loki cannot breathe or think. His fingers clutch at Mama’s dress. Mama kisses his forehead. Loki whines and presses his face against her shoulder. He cannot—he cannot look at her, he can’t—it was him, he told the Kursed—Mother—“Hush, Magpie, Mama’s here. I am. Mama’s here.”

            It’s what she said the day Loki fell from the parapet, when she found Thor crying over him in a gilded corridor. “Mama’s here, Magpie, you’re safe now,” she assured him, and then told Thor, “Hush now, your brother will be all right.” Her hands hovered over Loki as her magic swirled around him, mending bones and knitting broken flesh.

            “Mama,” Loki whispers.

            “Right here,” Mama says.

            “I’m sorry. Mother, Mama, I—you—”

            “No, Loki, don’t apologize for what happened to me.”

            “It was my fault. I told him to take the stairs to the left.”

            “That doesn’t mean—”

            “It was my fault!” Loki roars. He jerks away from Mama. He curls in on himself, tugging at his hair. “It was my fault!”

            “Loki!” Mama grabs Loki’s wrists again, pulling him upright. The world rocks around him as he stares at her. The stern look she gives him brooks no argument. “You may not blame yourself for Malekith’s actions. Do you understand?” When Loki doesn’t speak, Mama warns, “Loki…”

            “But I—”

            “I saw what you and Thor did.” Mama’s grip on Loki’s arms gentles. She tucks a strand of hair behind his ear. “You were right. I despise your fights, but they cannot surprise me anymore. You two. Like—”

            “—two sides of the same coin?” Loki’s voice trembles. He can’t make the words sound as sarcastic as he means them.

            “Like brothers,” Mama corrects.

            Loki scoffs. “Thor’s a fool.” After a moment, he adds quietly, “As am I.”

            “Oh, Loki.”

            “He never hates me. Even when he intended to hate me, he did not hate me. Mother, why can’t Thor hate me? I can hate him, but—” Loki’s breath hitches. He thinks of Thor’s anguished expression. Mother and brother gone in nearly one blow—Thor was always the sentimental one. “Why must he always love me?”

            “Because he is your brother.”

            Loki curses. Mother’s right. He knows it. Thor is not the bully who left Asgard years ago. No, he is like a child again, the dear idiot who cried when Loki was the one who was hurt. “I could even learn to tolerate him now if I were alive. But he will never be a great king. He’s too worried about being a good man.”

            Mother stays quiet for a moment. Her fingers card through Loki’s hair. He leans into the touch, eyes closing. “You ought not have died,” Mother says finally.

            Loki snorts. “I stood too close to an angered monster. That sort of death was probably always my fate. You know how I love monsters, Mother.”

            “Aye, I do.” Loki can hear the smile in Mother’s voice. “And I love them if they are yours.”

            “Sleipnir. Fenrir.” Loki swallows. “Jormungandr.” He hadn’t thought of them before. He hasn’t seen any of them in years—Sleipnir is Odin’s personal slave, Fenrir’s chained to a rock, and Jormungandr’s cast into the sea—but they are his children. He always assumed he would find a way back to them someday. Now he doesn’t have a chance.

            “You should go back, Loki.”

            Loki’s eyes jerk open. “What?”

            Mother regards him with a steady gaze. “You should go back.”

            “I’m dead.”

            Mother nods. “But hasn’t your magic taught you anything? Nothing is permanent, least of all death.”

            “But—I would be a child. A babe in arms.” Loki can’t keep the disgust out of his voice. He hasn’t lived thousands of years just to go back and do it all again.

            “If you went back to the realm of the living solely relying on your own strength? Yes. But you are not alone, are you?” Mother smiles, rubbing her thumb across Loki’s cheek. “Dear Magpie, you are not alone. I could send you back to your body unscathed.”

            “And then what? If I live, what do I do?” Loki frowns. “Find Thor? He believes me dead. He probably loves me better dead. I’ve redeemed myself, Mother. Living would cheapen it.”

            Mother sighs. “Loki.”

            “You know it is the truth.”

            “You could go back to Asgard.”

            “As what? A guard? A wench? Forever in disguise, forever afraid of slipping up, forever living in the shadows?” Loki springs to his feet to pace. “No. No, Mother, no. I have lived in the shadows long enough. I am great.”

            “You are.”

            “Then what should I do?”

            Mother doesn’t flinch when Loki yells. She climbs to her feet with the cool grace that made her a perfect queen. “Why, Loki, whatever it is you think you must.”

            Slowly, Loki smiles.

…

            Mother holds Loki for a long time before she lets him leave. “I will see you again,” she promises, “dear child. Remember that you are good.”

            “I will remember you,” Loki swears.

            Mother kisses his forehead, gives him her blessing, and then the world compresses, squeezing Loki through space and time. It’s madder than the Bifrost, darker and sharper, full of nightmares and screaming. There’s a horrible moment when Loki ceases to exists, but then he’s through, awake and yelling in his own frozen body. His grey skin turns blue as his blood flows again. It takes him a moment to remember how to pull up a glamour to make him look like an Aesir, another to get his muscles to work. When they do, he sits up and stretches.

            Thor and his wench are long gone. Loki wonders how much time has passed. They didn’t take my body? Loki thinks, nearly indignant. But of course Thor would be practical. While a battle rages, there’s no time to mourn casualties. Malekith won’t hold off on releasing the Aether just because Thor wants time to grieve.

            Loki briefly considers catching up with Thor. He can’t reveal himself to his brother. That would ruin everything. Thor’s an idiot, though. Surely the whole fight will go wrong with him in charge.

            Thor’s wench is bright, Loki reminds himself. A scientist, one of those lesser magicians humans so worship. She, for all her mortal weaknesses, will balance Thor.

            Anyway, Mother said Loki should go to Asgard. Loki stands and stretches. His back pops. He smiles at the sensation. He’s alive, well and truly alive. He is greater than death itself. Maybe he ought to go to Asgard. If he can conquer death…

            In an instant, Loki has a plan. His magic ripples over him, giving him the façade of one of Odin’s guards. “Heimdall,” he says in a voice that is not his own.

            Before he can say _open the Bifrost,_ he’s whisked away on the Rainbow Bridge. He lands in Heimdall’s observatory to find the Guardian looking directly at him. Through him? Loki wonders. His suspicions are confirmed when Heimdall says, “I cannot watch you kill my king.”

            “Then don’t watch.” Loki shrugs. It feels strange to do so in a different body. He can’t wait to be rid of this illusion. “Haven’t you already committed treason today? For a worthy cause, wasn’t it?”

            “That remains to be seen.” Heimdall watches Loki expressionlessly. Loki fights the urge to fidget. Not many creatures, be they monsters or men, can unnerve Loki, but Heimdall tops that very short list. “The king sits on his throne.”

            “And if a new king sits in his place by nightfall?”

            Heimdall turns away. Loki walks slowly toward the door, wondering what the Guardian plans. Will he draw his sword? Not that Loki couldn’t defeat him, but honestly, it would be such a mess. Heimdall’s useful.

            Heimdall doesn’t move. As Loki walks through the door to Asgard, though, he could swear he hears him murmur, “Long live the king.”

            The walk to the throne room is short and swift. Loki only just remembers to slow his step, to look grieved. “Thor?” Odin asks of the man he thinks is one of his guards.

            Loki shakes his head. “We did find a body, my lord. I am sorry.” He looks down as a good guard should. How will Odin react, he wonders? As the father he never was, or as the king he always has been?

            “Loki.” Loki nods, glancing up. Odin stares into the distance, lost in thought. Loki thinks he might glimpse pity in the old face—but no. Odin sighs. “Thor will be grieved. I will have to remind him of the pain Loki has caused the Nine Realms. Truly, Thor cared far too much for that foundling.”

            “Oh, did he?” Anger bubbles in Loki’s stomach. It filters through his veins to where his magic rests. His illusion stays in place, but he longs to tear it away. “Too much for his own brother?”

            “They were not brothers. As Frigga cared too much for a child who was not her son.” Odin blinks his one eye and turns to frown at the man he thinks is his guard. “Do not question me.”

            “Why not? I always have, Allfather. Why not question the man who would have left a changeling child to starve in the ice?” Loki’s voice cracks across the throne room. It is his voice now, though he hasn’t dropped the physical illusion. “Why not question the man who let his son fall from the Bifrost? Why not question the man who tore a mother from her youngest child and kept him locked in a dungeon while she wept for him? Why not?”

            Odin pulls himself up to his full height. The remnants of his old strength show in his good eye; a lesser creature than Loki would shrink for fear of being struck down by the king. “Who are you?” Odin demands.

            Loki bounds up the stairs to the throne. He did this as a child, racing Thor, and as a prince, begging to be king. Now he strides forward until he stands a breath away from Odin, closer than anyone but Frigga would dare to come. When Odin reaches for his sword, Loki grabs his arm. He drops all the illusions until his skin turns blue. Odin’s skin dies beneath Loki’s freezing touch. He cries out. Loki tightens his grip, his skin turning pale again. Odin’s eye widens. Loki smiles, all teeth.

            “I am Loki Friggason, king of Asgard, and I come to claim my throne.”

**Author's Note:**

> Long live the king.


End file.
